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'Jesus Didn't Come to Abolish Religion; He Came to Fulfill It' (5513)

A response to recent pro-Jesus, anti-religion Internet video.

Every once in a while, a video unexpectedly becomes an Internet sensation, garnering attention all over the place and spreading like wildfire through the virtual world.

Just this past week, a phenomenon of this type has emerged in the form of a slickly produced video of a 20-something-year-old man in a leather jacket half rapping, half speaking a poem about Jesus and religion — more specifically how the former came to abolish the latter.

Incredibly, this five-minute video (without much musical or visual enhancement) featuring a single person offering a not very sophisticated argument, as of today [Jan. 20] has garnered upward of 12 million views! A student of mine at the seminary first clued me in to the video, but then, through the Word on Fire website and Facebook page, I was flooded with requests to comment on it.

So here goes:

What the young man in the video is presenting is a simplistic and radical form of evangelicalism, whose intellectual roots are in the thought of Martin Luther. Luther famously held that justification (or salvation) takes place through grace alone accepted in faith, and not from good works of any kind.

To rely on liturgy or sacraments or moral effort for salvation, Luther thought, amounted to a pathetic “works righteousness,” which he sharply contrasted to the “alien righteousness” that comes, not from us, but from Christ. This basic theological perspective led Luther (at least in some texts) to demonize many elements of ecclesial life as distractions from the grace offered through Jesus, and this is why we find, even to this day in many evangelical Protestant churches, a muting of the liturgical, the sacramental, the institutional, etc.

These things constitute the “religion” that many evangelicals are against. And what the young man in the video learned from his evangelical teachers is that Jesus himself stood against these same “religious” distractions in his own day — which is why the Lord criticized the Pharisees for their fussy legalism and why he promised to tear down the Temple in Jerusalem.

Now, Luther’s theological theory had enormous implications culturally and politically as well. The freedom that Luther declared from Church law and institution soon morphed in the minds of many into a call for freedom from what were taken to be repressive political laws, traditions and institutions. One of Luther’s earliest and most provocative texts was titled “The Freedom of a Christian,” and it is no accident whatsoever that “freedom” became the most powerful and explosive word in the modern political lexicon.

Indeed, our own country, which proudly bears the title “the land of the free,” was born in a great act of revolutionary anti-institutionalism — which goes a long way toward explaining why this young man’s video is getting such great play in America.

Well, what does a Catholic make of all of this? Not much, as it turns out.

In his theology of justification by grace alone, Luther conveniently overlooked a plethora of biblical texts, including many from St. Paul, whom he claimed as his principle inspiration. In the parable of the sheep and goats from Matthew 25, it is clear that salvation is dependent, not primarily on faith, but on the quality of our love, especially toward those who are weakest and poorest.

The same Paul who spoke of justification through faith also said, “If I have faith enough to move the mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” And the same Paul who experienced the risen Jesus in an intensely personal moment of conversion also spoke eloquently and often of becoming a member of Jesus’ “mystical body,” which is the Church.

In short, the Bible drives a wedge neither between faith and love nor between individual salvation and ecclesial belonging. Further, the same Jesus who railed against the hypocritical legalism of the Pharisees also said, “I have come not to abolish the law but to fulfill it.” And the same Jesus who threatened to tear down the Temple in Jerusalem also promised “in three days to rebuild it.”

The point is this: Jesus certainly criticized — even bitterly so — the corruptions in the institutional religion of his time, but he by no means called for its wholesale dismantling. He was, in point of fact, a loyal, observant, law-abiding Jew. What he affected was a transfiguration of the best of that classical Israelite religion — Temple, law, priesthood, sacrifice, covenant, etc. — into the institutions, sacraments, practices and structures of his mystical body, the Church.

If the young rapper in the video is against the corruptions of institutional religion up and down the ages, then he’s got an ally in me. Finding them is like shooting fish in a barrel and criticizing them is as easy as being against rotten eggs.

But if he is advocating an individualist spirituality that ignores the thousands of ties that bind believers to one another through sacrament, practice and institutional belonging, and if he’s calling for a theology that divorces Jesus from his body, the Church, then he’s got an opponent in me.

Lots of New Age devotees today want spirituality without religion, and lots of evangelicals want Jesus without religion. Both end up with abstractions. But the one thing Jesus is not is an abstraction. Rather, he is a spiritual power who makes himself available precisely in the dense institutional particularity of his mystical body across space and time.

Jesus didn’t come to abolish religion, he came to fulfill it.

Editor’s note: This column is courtesy of Catholic News Agency.

Father Robert Barron is the founder of the global ministry Word on Fire

and the Francis Cardinal George Professor of Faith and Culture at

University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein. He is the creator and

host of a new 10-episode documentary series called Catholicism

and also hosts programs on Relevant Radio, EWTN and at WordOnFire.org.

Comments

I stopped reading at that part where you wrote that “Luther famously held that justification (or salvation) takes place through grace alone accepted in faith, and not from good works of any kind.”

It clearly states in Ephesians Chapter 2, verses 8 and 9 that, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Not by works, lest any man should boast.”

Not to mention that Luther broke from the Catholic church because of corruption.

Posted by Chris on Tuesday, Jan 24, 2012 10:36 PM (EST):

The battle cry of Luther and Protestants is Justification by Faith alone however, Luther’s theology implies grace alone since according to him (and to Catholics too) even faith is a pure gift of grace from God. I heard Scott Hahn once say, that for Lutherans, it would be Justification by Grace alone through faith alone, whereas for Catholics it would be Justification by grace alone, through faith working in love. Where our definition differs from a works righteousness is that we believe, if I am not mistaken, that even our good works are not the result of our own human doing. It is the prompting of the Holy Spirit even when we do not realize it that moves us to our ‘good works’ or to say it better prompts us to love.

Posted by Mary on Tuesday, Jan 24, 2012 8:40 PM (EST):

Here is an excellent video (link below) is created in response to this same video. I received it from Bridegroom press:

“And the same Jesus who threatened to tear down the Temple in Jerusalem also promised “in three days to rebuild it.””

The “Temple” Jesus was referring to was His body and not the physical Temple structure in Jerusalem. He is the God-Man; fully human in everyway
like ourselves, except sin, but also God—the great I AM, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. So Jesus’ body was indeed a temple: The Temple. Fr. Barron explains this in the first video of his 10 part series on Catholocism.

John 14:8-10 NAB

If you know me, then you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
Philip said to him, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”
Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Posted by marilyn on Tuesday, Jan 24, 2012 11:33 AM (EST):

New video made by 2 Grade 9 students of St. Joseph the Worker Catholic Church, Thornhill, Ontario, Canada in response to the video ‘Why I hate religion but love Jesus”

Father mentions Luther’s “theology of justification by grace alone”—isn’t this the Catholic position? Seems “faith” should replace “grace” in that remark.

Posted by aktenny on Tuesday, Jan 24, 2012 10:28 AM (EST):

I came upon this video by chance recently. It is immediately engaging and nearly as immediately - disappointing. The message here seems to be that Jesus is “all about me”. Perhaps, Fr. Barron you should create a counter video - one in which the message is “I am all about Christ’s Church, my hands, my feet, the words I write and the songs I sing.

Both Matthew (Ch. 25: v 31-46) and Luke (Ch. 16, in the parable of the rich man and the beggar - Dives and Lazarus - give clear evidence of Jesus instructing us to care for others. The rich man is NOT exempted from this simply because of failure to see the beggar; to him, the beggar at his front gate is merely part of the scenery. Institutional Christianity is needed to transmit to new Christians information on which parts of Scripture are important in forming our conduct.
TeaPot562

Posted by chris on Monday, Jan 23, 2012 8:20 PM (EST):

Your statements about “individual spirituality”/“spirituality without religion” reminded me of a Peter Kreeft talk, where he discussed C. S. Lewis’ discussion of what I suspect is the root of those desires.

Lewis wrote:

“The pantheist’s God does nothing, demands nothing. He is there if you wish for him, like a book on a shelf. ...

“An impersonal God - well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside our own heads - better still. A formless life-force, surging through us, a vase power which we can tap - best of all.

“But God himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the hunter, king, husband - that is quite another matter.”

As flawed human beings, we desire power; we desire convenience, we resist the idea of demands, limits and expectations.

The railing against “religion” seems to me to be rooted in the resistance to any kind of call for personal sacrifices on our part - such calls are almost universally derided as “oppressive & hypocritical rules.”

The rejection of “religion” while attempting to hold to some kind of spirituality boils down to discarding any doctrine that seems uncomfortable, or demanding, by simply claiming that the demands are not of God, but are nothing but “man made rubbish.”

Posted by Chris on Monday, Jan 23, 2012 5:36 PM (EST):

You jogged a thought at your mention of the “individualist spirituality”, or the desire many have for “spirituality without religion.”

IIRC, Peter Kreeft referred to this desire as paganism, or “Christ’s old enemy, risen from the dead”.

Once when Dr. Kreeft discussed C. S. Lewis’ book “Miracles”, I niticed Lewis discussing that very topic.

Lewis writes:

“The pantheist’s God does nothing, demands nothing. He is there if you wish for him, like a book on a shelf. ...

“An impersonal God - well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside our own heads - better still. A formless life-force, surging through us, a vase power which we can tap - best of all.

“But God himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the hunter, king, husband - that is quite another matter.”

As flawed human beings, we desire power; we desire convenience, we resist the idea of demands, limits and expectations.

The railing against “religion” seems to me to be rooted in the resistance to any kind of demands - demands that the near universal cries against rules that religion is allegedly solely made up of.

The rejection of “religion” while attempting to hold to some kind of spirituality boils down to discarding any doctrine that seems uncomfortable, or demanding, by simply claiming that the demands are not of God, but are nothing but “man made rubbish.”

At which point, life can comfortably go on without any of that pain in the neck “ritualistic nonsense….”

Congratulations! Once again, Father Robert Barron addresses the roots of the problems presented by the sincere but misleading beliefs of well intentioned men and women. Add to the references made to Saint Paul and Martin Luther, that of Dostoyevski’s Brothers Karamazov, “The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor.” Thank you, oremus ad invicem, Gonzalo Palacios.

Posted by Geo on Monday, Jan 23, 2012 2:27 PM (EST):

It is a shame that this inane video and its half-witted author is garnering so much undeserved attention. Unfortunately, however, when something goes “viral” on the moron’s playground that is so much of the internet, I suppose a response in order.

Fr. Claude Byrnes also did a very good response which is getting a lot of traffic on YouTube. He did it in the same style as the original, making use of light rap. Consider profiling this video so we can spike the stats. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru_tC4fv6FE

Posted by Ryan Peters on Monday, Jan 23, 2012 11:52 AM (EST):

Thank you so much for writing this! When my friends were sharing this video some weeks ago, I told them that I could write a paper on every single thing wrong with the video. It seems that I don’t have to write that now and I can just link them to this! Thank you, again, for this!

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